Arlington Heights couple marks 73rd wedding anniversary with drive-by celebration

Two days after Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip celebrated their 73rd wedding anniversary, an Arlington Heights couple marked the same milestone.

Bob and Kathryn Schafer, who are 97 and 96 respectively, enjoyed a drive-by celebration from their apartment at Luther Village in Arlington Heights. Four generations took part, including the couple's five children, 14 grandchildren, 21 great-grandchildren and 2 great-great-grandchildren.

"They called us Elizabeth and Philip when we married," said Kathryn, 96, with a laugh, acknowledging the similarity. "They've been married a long time, too."

Though their weddings took place two days apart back in 1947, they were vastly different. While the royal couple married in Westminster Abbey amid a countrywide celebration, the Schafers were wed at St. Ignatius Church in Chicago.

The bride wore a borrowed dress and the couple celebrated with family and friends afterward at a reception that included punch and cookies. Yet, the day was filled with great joy.

They had become engaged on D-Day, Kathryn explains, when Bob had been home on leave.

"It was at the Palmer House," Kathryn says. "But it was so strange. Here we were so happy, but everyone else was praying."

The couple met in first grade at St. Hilary's School in Chicago. Kathryn remembers that he was very smart and that she, being a year younger than her classmates, was allowed to stay only because she knew how to read.

That nugget would come full circle 30 years later when Kathryn was one of the first lay teachers hired by St. Alphonsus School in Prospect Heights. She was assigned to teach first grade, and right from the start she shared her love of reading with her first class of 45 students.

Another seed planted in her grammar school years was a love of acting. She remembers in eighth grade when she was cast as Mrs. Ruggles in a student production of "The Birds' Christmas Carol."

"I had to learn 18 pages of dialogue," Kathryn remembers. "I didn't think I could do it, but I did."

Fast forward another 30 years, to 1966, when her daughter, Kate, auditioned for a part in the musical at St. Viator High School. She earned the role and would go on to earn her master's in theater at Northwestern.

Kate Schafer Costello would return to her roots, sharing her love of performance with students first at Buffalo Grove High School and then at St. Viator, where she taught theater and directed plays for 20 years before retiring last spring.

Costello's parents started dating in high school, and Bob enlisted in the Navy after Pearl Harbor. He served in the Philippines and later in the Pacific, ultimately achieving the rank of Aviation Radioman, Second Rank.

"We wrote every day," Kathryn says. "Oh, how I looked forward to those letters."

After they married, the couple lived with family in Chicago. By the time they had three children, they moved out to the Northwest suburbs, moving in 1953 to Des Plaines, in 1955 to Mount Prospect and, ultimately, in 1968 to Arlington Heights.

Bob sold insurance and had his own agency in Arlington Heights before moonlighting as a bus driver for Wheeling Township Elementary District 21. Kathryn began teaching in 1960, and would stay at St. Alphonsus for the next 26 years, most of them teaching first grade.

Their five children still live in the Northwest suburbs. Oldest son Bob and his wife, Tricia, live in Richmond, while daughter Mary, as well as Costello and her husband, Jim, and their brother Jim and his wife Mary Wu all live in Arlington Heights. Their youngest daughter, Ann Kmipp, and her husband Steve live in Lake Zurich.

"I think it's a tribute to Kathryn and Bob that every single one of their children understood that a good life starts with a good marriage, and that a good marriage takes work," says their son-in-law, Jim Costello.

Kathryn agrees. She bristles at such popular TV shows as "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette," not to mention "Married at First Sight."

"A loving marriage takes a lot of communication," she says, "with lots of forgiving and overlooking the little things that happen. We never thought about divorce. You talk about things that happen. I guess we've been pretty lucky."